Using System State Manager › How to Specify and Store Actions › Substituting Data

Substituting Data

Action text variables consist of an ampersand (&) followed by a 1- to 32-character name.

CA OPS/MVS substitutes data into the variable in these ways:

• From the current row of the directory table.
• From the current row of the resource information table.
• From a global variable, as follows:
  • If the variable is the name of a column in the directory table, then the value of that column for the current row becomes the value for the variable.
  • If the variable has the name &SSMTABLE, its value is the current name of the resource information table.
  • If the variable is the name of a column in the current resource information table, then the value of that column for the current row becomes the value for the variable.
  • If the variable is a global variable, the value of the global variable becomes the value of the action clause variable.
  • If the variable is a system symbol, the value of the symbol becomes the value of the action clause variable.
  • In all other cases, CA OPS/MVS substitutes a null string for the variable when you use the CLIST method, and the variable name for the REXX method.
• When using substring notation - &varname(start,length) as follows

  start

  This parameter is the starting position parameter, which is determined from the substring beginning position. A value of 1 indicates the first value of the string. When the position exceeds the length of the original string, then only pad characters are returned.

  length (Optional)

  This parameter determines the length of substring to extract. When this argument is absent, the remainder of the string is returned. When the length exceeds the number of characters remaining, pad characters are added at the end.

  Note: Pad character is a blank.